Report: EastMed gas pipeline to start soon

Greece, Italy, and Cyprus have reached an agreement with Israel to lay a pipeline connecting the Jewish state’s gas reserves to the three countries, a report in the Times of Israel says.

The paper says that the East Med Pipeline Project is to start about 170 kilometers (105 miles) off Cyprus’s southern coast and stretch for 2,200 kilometers (1,350 miles) to reach Otranto, Italy, via Crete and the Greek mainland.

Work on the project will cost over $7 billion, is expected to begin within a few months, and to conclude within five years, Hadashot TV reported.

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called the project “emblematic” of the cooperation between the three countries and said that with cooperation, the Mediterranean would become “a sea of peace”.

Dana Weiss, chief political analyst and anchor at News Channel IL, Israel’s leading news company says it will be the longest and deepest underwater gas pipeline in the world.